I believe that marketing automation promises so much, but delivers to so few.

Organizations that have successfully implemented marketing automation see terrific strides in productivity. A recent report shows that 79 percent of marketers who have been able to deploy such systems have seen an increase in revenue.

This is encouraging, but unfortunately, most of these successes are limited to big businesses.A growing percentage of the largest companies ($500M in revenue or more) have automation solutions. However, only less than nine percent of companies smaller than that can make the same claim.

Why? Is it simply that smaller businesses don’t have the budget, desire or manpower, or is it something else?

As with a lot of new technologies, the financial incentives and early adopter community steer software makers to Fortune 5000 organizations. As a result, marketing automation software has converged on the needs of large enterprises. This means added complexity, expensive services and specialized talent.

I recently saw an industry analyst’s checklist for assessing marketing automation systems. The list of exotic features and large-company complexity made my heart sink.

It’s no wonder that the first thing a marketing leader needs to do after signing off on a purchase of a marketing automation system is to write up a job spec for a specialist to run that system.

How can a growing enterprise justify automation systems when they’re facing bloated costs and involved implementations?

Turns out they can’t. Our own surveys tell us that cost and lack of technical skills are the two biggest deterrents to implementing marketing automation. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Marketing automation should be straightforward and designed for the marketing team that is already in place. It should support the major activities of the team and offer a solution that drives leads, increases the quality of prospects, and generates revenue.

Here are my philosophies on making marketing automation available for everyone:

1) All organizations, not just the big-budgeted few, should have access to marketing automation.2) Marketing automation should take care of the mundane tasks and allow marketers more time for strategy and creativity.3) Marketing automation is holistic – email, PR, social, search, integration and more. Partial solutions will ultimately fall.4) Marketing automation should be a simple purchase; a timid trip to the C-suite with an outstretched palm should not be needed.5) Marketing automation solutions should result in simplicity, fluidity and productivity – not rules, rigidity and complexity.6) Marketing automation is about more than grinding leads. It’s about finding and connecting with potential customers.7) Marketing automation software coordinates people, processes and data. It destroys silos and stops the creation of new ones.8) Buckshot marketing no longer works. Tighten and focus.9) Marketing automation systems should make sense of your marketing data without the presence of a statistician.10)You have the data to know which parts of your marketing work and which don’t. Your system should gather data and use it to guide your team’s efforts.11)Most importantly, marketing automation software that doesn’t grow business doesn’t matter.

To get beyond the nine percent, this is how I’m leading my team in designing marketing automation.